Airtable Alternatives in 2026, and the Client Portal Question
Airtable is still a very good base. People look elsewhere when the seats add up, when clients need their own way in, or when the business needs software rather than a table with forms. Here is what each option costs, and what it leaves out.
Search for Airtable alternatives and most of what comes up was written by one of the alternatives. So is this: we make Bnome, which builds apps for a business, on a base it already has or on a database of its own. Read this as a map from someone with a stake. Every price below was read on the product's own page on 7 October 2026, and every page is linked.
What changed: Airtable has a new owner
On 4 August 2026 Bending Spoons agreed to buy Airtable at an enterprise value of $1.285 billion, and on 4 September it completed the deal. Bending Spoons' CEO, Luca Ferrari, promised to invest "heavily in Airtable's product, customer support, and go-to-market capabilities". The same release describes how Bending Spoons runs what it buys: "The transformation is typically deep and entails reorganizing teams, overhauling technology, redesigning user interfaces, accelerating product development, and enhancing marketing and monetization." Its other businesses include Evernote, Vimeo and WeTransfer.
Nothing has changed on the price list yet: on 7 October Airtable's pricing page showed the same plans, and we found no announced change. But many teams are using the moment to ask whether Airtable is still the right shape for them.
What Airtable costs a small business
Airtable charges per seat: "you will be charged for all users who have edit permissions for at least one base in the workspace", while "read-only collaborators, form submissions, or share links" are free. Team is $20 a seat a month billed yearly, or $24 monthly; Business is $45, or $54. Each plan also caps the base:
| Per base or month | Free | Team | Business |
|---|---|---|---|
| Records per base | 1,000 | 50,000 | 125,000 |
| Automation runs a month | 100 | 25,000 | 100,000 |
| API calls a month | 1,000 | 100,000 | Unlimited |
| Attachments per base | 1 GB | 20 GB | 100 GB |
Clients cost extra. Airtable's own client-facing option, Portals, is an add-on "starting at $120 per month for 15 portal seats" on Team and "$150 per month for 15 portal seats" on Business. Read-only guests are free; "there can only be one portal per base"; and a guest who edits in more than one base is "billed as an internal editor". By our arithmetic, a team of five on Team, paying monthly, with a portal for 15 clients who can edit: 5 × $24 + $120 = $240 a month.
Airtable is a database you build on yourself. If what you need is the software around the data — a portal, a desk, reminders that go out on their own — that is where the alternatives differ most.
The short version
- A database like Airtable, cheaper or self-hosted: Baserow, NocoDB, or Grist.
- A client portal on top of the Airtable you already have: Softr, Noloco, Zite or Jet Admin.
- Docs and databases in one place: Notion.
- Work management with tables: SmartSuite.
- Mobile-friendly apps from a sheet: Glide.
- The apps a business runs on, built for you — a portal for clients, a desk for the team, jobs that run on their own — on your Airtable base or a database of its own: Bnome.
Side by side
| What it is | Paid from | Clients and outside users | Your Airtable data | Self-host | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Softr | Portals and internal tools | $19/mo yearly, $25 monthly | Team and client users per plan (Pro: 10 + 50) | Live, no migration | No |
| Zite | AI app builder with a database | $20/mo yearly, $25 monthly | Unlimited users on every plan | Live, or migrate | No |
| Baserow | Database and app builder | $10/user yearly, $12 monthly | 500 app users free | One-time import | Yes, free |
| NocoDB | Spreadsheet database | $12/seat yearly, or $108 for unlimited seats | Read-only shared views | One-time import | Yes, for internal use |
| SmartSuite | Work management | $15/seat yearly, min. 3 | Read-only shared views | No connector | No |
| Notion | Docs and databases | $10/member yearly, $12 monthly | Guests on single pages | CSV only | No |
| Glide | Apps from a sheet | Classic Business $199/mo yearly | 30 users, then $5 each | Business plan, up to 25,000 rows | No |
| Noloco | Portals on your data | $65/mo yearly, $79 monthly | 1,000 active clients | Live sync | No |
| Bnome | Builds and runs a business's apps | $30/mo Pro; free to start | Clients get an app of their own; no seats | Builds on your base | No |
Read on each product's own pricing and help pages on 7 October 2026. Prices are monthly, in US dollars, before tax.
Each option, briefly
Softr
The best-known way to put a portal on top of Airtable: "Works with your Airtable data, no migration required" (Softr). It splits app users into team and client users — anyone on a free email domain such as Gmail counts as a client — with 5 + 5 on Basic and 10 + 50 on Pro ($99 a month yearly, $119 monthly). Google sign-in for your users and removing Softr's branding start at Pro (pricing).
Zite
An AI app builder with its own database, from the makers of Fillout, and the page that ranks first for "airtable alternatives". Its headline is the user model: "Unlimited users on every plan. Even free." It can show and update your Airtable records in place, or copy the base across, after which "Changes made in Airtable after the migration do not automatically appear" (Zite help). Pro is $20 a month yearly.
Baserow
"The open source Airtable alternative", and the strongest case for hosting it yourself: "The self-hosted version will never have row, storage, or API request limitations" (Baserow). It imports an Airtable base in one go, though some field types don't come across, and its application builder gives up to 500 outside users for free. Premium in the cloud is $10 a user a month yearly.
NocoDB
"A Free & Self-hostable Airtable Alternative", with one change most lists miss: it is no longer open source in the usual sense. Its Sustainable Use License says "You may use or modify the software only for your own internal business purposes or for non-commercial or personal use" (licence). It shares read-only views by link, not a client login. In the cloud, Plus is $12 a seat yearly, or $108 a month for unlimited seats.
SmartSuite
Work management with tables, views and automations, now leading with risk and compliance teams. There is no free plan (a 14-day trial instead); Team is $15 a seat a month yearly with a three-seat minimum, and outsiders get read-only views (pricing). We found no Airtable importer.
Notion
Docs and databases in one workspace, good when the base is really a team's knowledge rather than its operations. Guests are added to single pages, not to a whole workspace, and there is no Airtable importer, so the route across is CSV (Notion help). Plus is $10 a member a month yearly.
Glide
Apps from spreadsheet data, now in two separate products: Glide Classic and the new GlideOS. On Classic, Airtable is a data source only "for Business and Enterprise customers", with "a total cap of 25,000 rows across all tables" (Glide docs), and Business is $199 a month yearly with 30 users included.
Noloco
A portal builder that keeps your Airtable as the source, with live sync on its Build plan: $65 a month yearly, 10 team seats and 1,000 active clients included, and 25,000 records before you pay for more (pricing). It says what your end users do never touches your credit balance.
Bnome
Not a database you design, but the software around one, built and run for you. You tell it how the business works; its agent builds the apps — the portal your clients open, the desk your team works from, the jobs that run on their own — on your existing Airtable base or on a database of its own (how it works). Each client sees only their own records. It doesn't charge per seat: "Pay for the work, not for seats" (pricing); Pro is $30 a month with 3,000 credits, your own domain and apps that never sleep.
The Airtable client portal question
"How much does Airtable Portals cost?" is one of the first things people ask. Here is every realistic way to give clients their own login to Airtable data today, and what the outside users cost.
| Way | Data stays in Airtable | What clients cost | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Airtable Portals | Yes | From $120/mo per 15 guests on Team, $150 on Business; read-only guests free | One portal per base; editing in two bases makes a guest a full seat |
| Read-only interfaces | Yes | Free | Clients need Airtable accounts and can only look |
| Softr | Yes, live | Pro includes 50 client users; extra from $1 each | Gmail users count as clients |
| Noloco | Yes, live sync | 1,000 active clients on Build ($65/mo yearly) | 25,000 records, then $25 per 25,000 |
| Zite | Yes, or migrate | Unlimited users on every plan | Credit, record and run limits per plan |
| Jet Admin | Yes | "unlimited users" on all plans; Pro $16/mo yearly | A builder you assemble yourself |
| Glide Classic | Yes, on Business | 30 users included at $199/mo yearly, then $5 each | 25,000-row cap on Airtable data |
| Bnome | Yes, or its own database | No per-seat price | Built and run for you, so you shape it by asking, not by dragging blocks |
One limit applies to every tool that keeps the data in Airtable, Bnome included: they all read it through Airtable's API, which allows "5 requests per second per base", and Team allows 100,000 API calls a month. For a portal with a few dozen clients that's plenty; for a busy one, it's the reason to move the data out.
Keep Airtable, give it an app
The usual choice is framed as stay or leave. There is a third way: keep the base your business already runs on, and have the software built around it. On Bnome you connect the base, describe how the business works, and the agent builds the apps on top of it: a portal where each client sees only their own records and can choose, confirm or leave a note, a desk for the team, and the jobs that should happen without anyone — the morning list, the reminder, the chase.
FAQ
Is there anything better than Airtable?
For a flexible database you design yourself, Airtable is still among the best. Others win on specific things: Baserow and NocoDB on self-hosting and price, Notion on docs, Softr, Noloco and Zite on client portals, and Bnome when you want the apps a business runs on built and kept running for you, on your Airtable base or its own database.
Does Google have anything like Airtable?
Not any more. Google Tables, its Airtable rival, stopped being supported after 16 December 2025, and Google advised users to move to Google Sheets or AppSheet, as TechCrunch reported.
How much does Airtable Portals cost?
Portals is an add-on starting at $120 a month for 15 portal seats on the Team plan and $150 a month for 15 on Business ($127.50 billed yearly). Read-only guests are free; on Team, guests who edit or comment are billed, on Business only editors.
What are the downsides of using Airtable?
Per-seat pricing for everyone who edits, record and automation caps per plan, a separate add-on for client access, an API limit of 5 requests per second per base, and, since September 2026, a new owner whose plans for prices aren't known yet.
Is there a free Airtable alternative?
Yes. Baserow's self-hosted version is free with no row or storage limits, NocoDB's is free for internal business use, and Zite and Baserow both have free cloud plans that allow outside users. Bnome is free to start, with 500 credits a month plus 1,000 at sign-up.
Sources
- Bending Spoons: agreement to acquire Airtable (4 Aug 2026)
- Bending Spoons: acquisition completed (4 Sep 2026)
- Airtable pricing
- Airtable help: Portals for external collaborators
- Airtable API rate limits
- Softr pricing
- Softr: Airtable client portal
- Zite pricing
- Zite: migrating from Airtable
- Baserow pricing
- NocoDB pricing
- NocoDB licence
- SmartSuite pricing
- Notion pricing
- Glide docs: Airtable as a data source
- Noloco pricing
- Jet Admin pricing
- TechCrunch: Google shuts down Tables (11 Sep 2025)
Tell Bnome how your business works.
It builds the apps your clients and your team use, on one real database, and keeps them running. Start free.
Try Bnome